Wagamama ケーキ

Sezreg threw a birthday bash last month and so I asked what sort of cake I could make her. She requested either Harry Potter or Wagamama. I would LOVE to do a Potter cake at some point, but decided that a Waga cake could be really fun, so constructed a bowl of ramen out of Victoria Sponge and icing...

I made the bowl using my ever so handy giant cupcake tin (the same I used for Windsor's head!) but without the top, so I just got the bowl shape with the dip in it - perfect for a Waga bowl! I coloured some sugarpaste with my chestnut brown dye and covered the bowl, then used white sugarpaste to line the inside of the bowl. I then whipped up some buttercream, made it slightly lighter in colour, and used it to add detail to the bowl...

Then using sugar paste I made noodles, chicken, pak choi, greens, tofu, kamaboko and a slice of lime and layered them inside the top of the bowl. I made a thin glace icing which I drizzled over the top for the miso soup...

Then I garnished with chopsticks and some wicked Happy Birthday candles I got in Waitrose, oishii!



Tom Windsor

What better way to say happy birthday to someone than by making a lifesize cake sculpture of their head?

Happy birthday Tom Windsor! I made the head by using a giant cupcake (with the pointy top sliced off) and filled with raspberry icing (recipe: 4 oz butter, 10 oz icing sugar, glug of milk, handful of fresh raspberries - blend!) I then covered the whole cake in sugarpaste coloured to look like skin (equal parts red and yellow colour) then added ears and nose which I stuck on with edible glue...

Then I mixed up a batch of very, very, VERY orange buttercream for the hair, which I roughly smoothed all over the head with a spatula...

Then I used sugar paste cut-outs for the eyes, mouth and teeth, which I stuck on with edible glue. And voila! Windsor's cake double was done.

I finished it off with a printer (he really wanted a printer involved) and some bags of swag - my bro's idea to symbolise Winz's thievery over the years. Head cakes are clearly the future - easy to make and there are all sorts of fun photo opportunities to be had, see below:

Voodoo cake!

Looks like there's going to be a clean up on aisle five...

Sarah Wellock's birthday demanded a very ridiculous Office-themed cake, and so Threat Level Midnight cake was created!

Starring Michael Scott as Michael Scarn, Dwight Schrute as 'Dwigt' and Jim Halpert as Goldenface.

Pacman Cupcakes - Happy Birthday Janeo!

Jane gave me total freedom to choose the theme of her birthday cake - so I picked Pacman!

I had seen some cakes similar to this on another cake blog (can't find the link now to give them credit, or else I'd post it!) so thought I'd have a bash. Sadly my black food colour doesn't go as black as I'd like so the colour contrast isn't as good as I wanted, but they still came out ok. These join my Mario cake as part of the Ridiculous Cakes Gaming Series: http://ridiculouscakes.blogspot.com/2011/04/hey-maaario.html !

Penguin Flavour Cake Pops

I have wanted to have a bash at making cake pops for a while now, so decided to try yesterday as I had the whole evening free and a charity bake sale on Saturday to bake for. I made penguins, inspired by my trip to London Zoo Lates last month!

I found a recipe on BBC Food, and in a bowl combined cake, melted dark chocolate, mixed nuts and some dessicated coconut. Then I rolled the mix into balls, stuck lolly sticks in, placed them on a baking tray and stuck them in the fridge for an hour to cool. While they were chilling, I melted white chocolate and then added enough black food colour to make it a penguin-y grey colour. Then I took the cake pops out the fridge, dunked them in the chocolate, used a spatula to smooth out the surface and then let them set before adding detail.

I used uncoloured melted white chocolate for the penguin belly, then I coloured a block of sugarpaste orange to make the beak and feet. The eyes are white sugarpaste with lids and eyes drawn on with my new food colour pen I got from Jane Asher - it's awesome!!

Unfortunately, I think I made the cake pops a bit big, as LOADS of them fell off when I dunked! So I have ended up with about 12 pops, and then a small army of penguin cake balls which still look fine, they're just not pops.

So cute!

Dance magic dance!

After the success of Hayl's Jaws cake last year, her birthday cake this year had to be even better! She asked for a Labyrinth cake.

I've never seen it, but know that people go crazy for David Bowie (and his slightly-inappropriate-for-a-kids'-film bulging leggings) and the goblins and the baby and the topsy-turvy stairs and all that jazz, so after a few Youtube vids and Google image searches I created an homage to the Goblin King in baked form...

I made a white chocolate mud cake and then covered it in a caramel ganache made of dulce du leche and white chocolate. I then put halved strawberries around the edge to balance out all the sugary-ness of the topping!

The ganache made the cake SO SLIPPERY, but I made Bowie's face on a piece of greaseproof paper out of sugarpaste - coloured with chestnut for the hair and a mix of red and yellow to make the face - and then added detail with my black icing pen and some bits of fleshy colour sugar paste for the nose and lips. Then I placed the face on top of the caramel topping.

I made Bowie's orb from grey sugarpaste, then added clock numbers (1-13!) around the edge. Finally, I used my black icing pen to make some topsy-turvy stair type patterns in the background, and a Bowie Labyrinth quote from some card and a cocktail stick. Easy!

My new star cutters...

...are awesome.

I made these to take to Daz's birthday bbq, for anyone who didn't fancy a bit of the boobs cake. I made vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing, then used my star cutters to make a load of different sized star decorations. I finished them off with a sprinkle of turquoise colour glitter.